


yellow boys

by dovelines



Category: VIXX
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Ambiguous Relationships, Eating Disorders, Epistolary, M/M, Smoking, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-16
Updated: 2017-02-16
Packaged: 2018-09-20 13:06:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9492419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dovelines/pseuds/dovelines
Summary: Feb 14, 9:25 PMhongbshould have taken a picture, submitted it to the visual showcase next monthtitle: i love ruining my own lifeFeb 14, 9:25 PMjyaaaaaniebitch that’s me





	

**Author's Note:**

> pay attention to the tags ;;

**Feb 12, 11:22 AM** ****  
**jyaaaaanie** ****  
it’s fuckin wild how much guilt you can feel over putting butter on your bagel  
I used half of one of those little packages from the bakery and almost started crying in the library???  
i ate it anyway tell me I did good~~

**Feb 12, 11:24 AM**  
**hongb** ****  
you did good, hyung  
i’m proud of you, really!  
did it go okay?

**Feb 12, 11:27 AM** ****  
**jyaaaaanie**  
i haven’t thrown it up yet if that’s what you’re asking

**Feb 12, 11:27 AM** ****  
**hongb**  
yet

**Feb 12, 11:28 AM**  
**jyaaaaanie** **  
** I make no promises >< but I'm doing my best

**Feb 12, 11:44 AM** ****  
**jyaaaaanie** **  
** have you eaten today, binnie?

**Feb 12, 11:46 AM** ****  
**hongb** **  
** lmao

**Feb 12, 11:46 AM** ****  
**jyaaaaanie** **  
** firstly relatable secondly babe please

**Feb 12, 11:47 AM** ****  
**hongb** **  
** can we just celebrate your bagel

**Feb 12, 11:47 AM** ****  
**jyaaaaanie** ****  
sure  
I’m regretting it but I’m not unfeeding the beast  
bc you’d be disappointed in me  
and I love u too much  
i still have 320 cal allotted for today, wanna get dinner tonight~? at 7 or something

**Feb 12, 11:50 AM** ****  
**hongb** ****  
you aren’t supposed to be counting anymore  
but ok. we can meet at the cafe by your dorm? they have pretty good lowcal stuff. lol

**Feb 12, 11:51 PM**  
**jyaaaaanie** ****  
come for my ass bingbong why don’t you!!!!!  
even when i graciously left yours intact!!!  
ok see you tonight~~~~ ily beanie baby

**Feb 12, 11:52 PM** ****  
**hongb** **  
** blocked

\---

When Jaehwan gets to the cafe, it’s five minutes past the hour and Hongbin is waiting for him outside, flicking ash out of a stubby cigarette. His jacket hangs unzipped but at least he has a hat on this time; it’s one of Hakyeon’s knitted monstrosities, firetruck-red with slightly lopsided cabling. Jaehwan is pretty sure he’s got one in green tucked away in his drawer back home that he’s never worn.

He stops in front of Hongbin, his boots crunching slightly on the sidewalk salt, and Hongbin blows smoke at his face. It’s sour, acrid - but familiar, even as he has to squint into the sting.

“Hi,” Hongbin says. His cheeks have pinked slightly in the cold, and every time he takes the cigarette down from his mouth it’s like he has to fight not to let his teeth chatter. Jaehwan wonders how long he’s been out here; if he came out especially early to smoke his appetite away and edge the cold in his limbs from _uncomfortable_ to _painful_. That feels like something Hongbin would do.

“Hi,” he says back, and Hongbin smiles, wide and toothy.

“What’s up?”

Jaehwan doesn’t really feel like being honest, so he doesn’t answer, and Hongbin doesn’t press him to. He tries to blow a smoke ring at him instead, but it comes out as a cockeyed kind of torus; Jaehwan waves a hand through it and it wisps away into nothing as soon as the vortex is disturbed. He tucks his hand back in his pocket soon enough. He’s not Hongbin, and he forgot his gloves.

“I thought we were quitting,” he says. It’s not that Hongbin is smoking again, it’s that he’s smoking without Jaehwan, even after they promised to keep each other together. Safe, if not always on the up, in the same way it’s safer to drive drunk with a buddy than it is to crash alone.

Hongbin shrugs and scuffs his sneaker on the edge of the curb. “I didn't buy them,” he says, stoutly, like it matters. “Chansik left a whole pack on the kitchen counter, and it's bad for you, smoking, so I took it.” He smiles, but it's different than the smile earlier. Sharper, thinner; he doesn't dimple.

Jaehwan scratches at the bridge of his nose and makes a face that, for once, doesn’t make Hongbin laugh, and he lets it fall almost immediately. “Trying to help him or hurt yourself?”

“Honestly?” Hongbin shrugs, takes another pull. Doesn’t say anything more. Jaehwan sniffs and looks at the patch of cement between Hongbin’s shoes.

The door to the cafe opens and a couple spills out, the boy laughing at something his girlfriend must have said, their hands tangled close in each other's pockets. The warm air washes over Jaehwan like a blanket; their laughter soothes the sharpness between his ears, calmly, sweetly, like - something. Something nice and friendly that he doesn’t have to think too much about.

And then the door swings shut, the bell tinging gently and the warmth locked safely inside the windows again. Jaehwan hates himself for looking at the girl’s legs and twitching harshly at the soft shape of her thighs.

He turns back to Hongbin, who is plucking another cigarette from Chansik’s box and letting it hang loose between his lips as he pulls out his lighter. Jaehwan’s lighter, really. That fucking lighter with its fucking latch that doesn’t hook right half the time and its fucking cheap yellow plastic; Jaehwan gave it to him months ago, just to tide him over until he could buy himself a proper one, but now he won’t let Jaehwan throw it away.

“Wanna share?” Jaehwan asks. It’s a joke but it isn’t, and he pulls one hand out of his coat pocket to reach across the space between them; Hongbin scoffs at him and clicks his lighter a bit more aggressively than he would normally. His cigarette lights on the third try, and he tucks the lighter back in the front pocket of his jeans, taking a long drag and exhaling an almost delicate cloud before answering.

“It'll ruin your voice, hyung.”

Now it’s Jaehwan’s turn to scoff. Hongbin is _so_ -

“I don't sing anymore, Bin,” he says, working not to snap, tamping down the - the contempt, maybe, that always boils under his skin when Hongbin tries to make himself into some kind of bullshit martyr. Not contempt exactly. It brews more like frustration, maybe with a splash of exhaustion and a hint of self-disgust - just for flavor. The Hongbin Melange, patent pending.

“Besides.” He collects himself a little, pulls up something teasing and warm from his reserves to give Hongbin a small shove. “I smoked before, I’ll smoke again, and it's not like a year and a half of puking all the damn time didn't fuck me up already.” Hongbin hands him the cigarette at that as if to say _good point,_  placing it almost softly between Jaehwan’s index and middle finger.

They blow through the rest of Chansik's pack instead of getting dinner, and Jaehwan tries to feel guilty, but he can't quite manage it.

\---

**Feb 14, 9:22 PM** ****  
**jyaaaaanie** **  
** a baby is hungry but a baby had a cupcake AND popcorn today so a baby can fuck right off

**Feb 14, 9:22 PM** ****  
**hongb** ****  
me as fuck  
I had a muffin this morning bc I’m the worst?

**Feb 14, 9:22 PM** ****  
**jyaaaaanie** **  
** these pastries are coming for us bin they want to ruin us

**Feb 14, 9:23 PM** ****  
**hongb** ****  
but why a cupcake, hyung? that’ll wreck your count  
and i know you’re counting don’t even lie

**Feb 14, 9:25 PM** ****  
**jyaaaaanie** ****  
:^)  
anyway it was bc wooniehyung was trying to make them for shik’s birthday and kept pressing until I finished one and told him it was delicious  
that I did throw up bc I’m a damn bitchass but I kept the popcorn down!!!!  
mint icing looks really cool in the toilet though lol it was Art

**Feb 14, 9:25 PM** ****  
**hongb** ****  
should have taken a picture, submitted it to the visual showcase next month  
title: i love ruining my own life

**Feb 14, 9:25 PM** ****  
**jyaaaaanie** **  
** bitch that’s me

\---

“Who are you talking to?”

Jaehwan locks his phone on impulse, jerking to look at Taekwoon in the doorway; he's already in his pajamas, plaid pants low on his hips and one of Wonshik’s band T-shirts loose around his shoulders, and as Jaehwan looks he yawns wide without covering his mouth.

“Binnie,” he answers. Shrugs. Taekwoon rubs his lips together as if thinking and trumps over to the couch to tuck himself into Jaehwan's side. His legs pull up under him, too long, and he tucks his head into Jaehwan's shoulder a little clumsily, so Jaehwan lets his cheek lean against the shower-damp crown of his roommate’s hair. His shampoo smells like mint and cucumber, cool and soothing.

They just sit and breathe for so long he thinks Taekwoon's fallen asleep. Jaehwan certainly starts to, even in his jeans and button-up, even grimy and unshowered. Taekwoon just has that effect on people - on him, at least. He's warm and solid and still and never says things Jaehwan doesn't want to hear.

“How did you meet Hongbin, have you said? You seem close.”

If Taekwoon feels Jaehwan's breath flutter strange in his lungs, and he must, pressed so close, he doesn't comment. Jaehwan's leg bounces absently.

“Similar interests, I guess.” It's painfully vague, Hakyeon would never let it fly - but this is Taekwoon, who probably has all the emotional complexity of a powerwashed brick wall but who somehow, miraculously, always knows when not to push him.

He can't explain, can't say they met because Hongbin had to be hospitalized for a month, and it overlapped with the whirlwind of a week after Jaehwan's parents caught him with fingers in his mouth and they’d cried a lot to a lot of different doctors; can't say they bond over how often and how far they fall off the recovery wagon. Can't lie, even, say that they just have friends in common, because before last summer Hakyeon was the only one who knew both of them. Jaehwan's pretty sure Taekwoon still doesn't even know what Hongbin looks like.

Silence for a few moments, then Taekwoon shifts, the couch cushion rubbing quietly against the fabric of his pants. “Mm,” is all he says.

His phone dings; it’s Hongbin again, almost certainly. He can see the screen glow, even flipped upside down with the display against the armrest of their couch, but he isn’t sure he wants to check with Taekwoon so close. That - thinking that, articulately, calmly, makes his stomach twist unpleasantly, even though he’s not sure why.

He doesn’t look at his phone.

His head leans against the back of the couch, face to the ceiling, and Taekwoon shifts again to follow the motion. He captures one of Jaehwan’s hands and solemnly plays with his fingers like they’re the most interesting thing he’s ever seen, even with the ink stains and the calluses at his knuckles and the scab from when he bit the bone of his thumb hard enough to make it bleed.

Jaehwan is, abruptly, very tired.

“Hyung,” he starts, then closes his mouth again and swallows. “What's the worst thing you've ever done?”

He can feel Taekwoon frown against his neck, and when he drops Jaehwan’s fingers, Jaehwan doesn’t let them stay in his reach; he tucks both of his hands between his thighs. “There's different kinds of worst,” Taekwoon says.

Jaehwan hums. “Most illegal, then.”

Taekwoon tilts his neck back and looks up at Jaehwan, not lifting off his shoulder, so his gaze just lands somewhere on Jaehwan's jaw. Jaehwan keeps his eyes straight up and lets them trace vague patterns in the stucco. “Are you doing illegal things?”

Jaehwan laughs, and he hopes it doesn't sound as guilty as it feels. “No.” He swallows. “Have _you_ ever?”

Taekwoon purses his lips and scrunches one side of his nose in thought. “I forged my mom’s signature so I could go to the zoo in middle school one time. That’s not illegal, though, I don’t think.” He’s almost petulant, like he can’t figure out why he’s so boring but he’s upset about it, and Jaehwan has to snort.

“Well,” he announces, rolling his neck, hearing the bones shift against each other as he leans the weight of his skull on Taekwoon’s forehead, “that’s not very interesting at all. No drugs? No theft? No fucking the teacher to get out of detention? I bet you could’ve done it, you’re hot-”

Taekwoon’s fist lands heavily right between Jaehwan’s lungs; the air punches out of him, fast and forced, and his shoulders curl up off the couch on instinct. Taekwoon whines pitifully at being dislodged as he slides down the cushion (like it isn’t his own fucking fault), his head ending up somewhere between Jaehwan’s armpit and ribcage. Serves him right. Jaehwan wiggles a little, just to be an asshole, just to squish Taekwoon into the couch - Taekwoon bites him.

They end up draped over each other again soon enough; Jaehwan pouts that Taekwoon gets heavy arms around his waist and doesn’t let him get up to shower, but it’s half-hearted and mostly for show. Taekwoon drums fingertips in the smooth spaces between Jaehwan’s ribs as though counting them. Jaehwan forces himself not to react.

“What about you?”

Taekwoon’s voice is quiet, soft enough that it almost surprises Jaehwan to pick words out of the sound where it ghosts over his throat.

“What about me what?”

“Illegal things.”

It takes him a few moments to process with Taekwoon still determinedly exploring his torso, Jaehwan's brain still shrieking about the dangers of letting hands on him, even over cloth. He drags himself out of his skin and back to the conversation with no small amount of difficulty and realizes, first: that Taekwoon wants an answer, and second: that he doesn’t really have one to give.

For one wild moment, he considers telling the truth. Considers telling Taekwoon _I used to abuse ADHD medicine that I bought from my classmates to stay awake and reduce my appetite,_   _because I’m fucking crazy_ , even opens his mouth to let the words out, but then his jaw clicks shut and his confidence dies cold somewhere in the region of his diaphragm.

Taekwoon isn’t Hongbin. Taekwoon is arguably a better friend than Hongbin, softer, gentler, but mostly he’s just _different_ ; if Jaehwan said something so raw like that, Taekwoon wouldn’t laugh like Hongbin laughs because Taekwoon has probably never had to make jokes out of the things that are destroying him just to force them into something bearable.

It’s an odd thought.

He says, “jaywalking,” with a shitty, too-wide grin instead, before the pause stretches on enough to make it awkward. Taekwoon smacks his neck with a huff.

\---

**Feb 17, 3:13 PM** ****  
**hongb** ****  
hey I just got out of my appt  
at the recovery center

**Feb 17, 3:14 PM** ****  
**jyaaaaanie** ****  
!!!  
did it go ok? do they want you inpatient again?

**Feb 17, 3:14 PM** ****  
**hongb** ****  
no they practically gave me a sticker  
I'm gaining weight  
apparently  
some kind of way  
against all efforts

**Feb 17, 3:15 PM** ****  
**jyaaaaanie** ****  
BIN!!!!!! BABE  
that's so good though im glad ;_____;

**Feb 17, 3:27 PM** ****  
**hongb** **  
** wanna come over for hot chocolate?

**Feb 17, 3:27 PM** ****  
**jyaaaaanie** **  
** oh binnie

**Feb 17, 3:27 PM** ****  
**hongb** **  
** don't oh binnie me. I know

**Feb 17, 3:28 PM** ****  
**jyaaaaanie** ****  
ok. ok  
I'm omw but don't wait for me if you want to drink yours now, ok?

\---

Hongbin's hands tremble on his mug. They tremble most of the time, really, but the weight of the cup in his fingers makes it worse, makes it hard for him to take a sip; Jaehwan just holds his and watches the heat dissolve the tiny marshmallows that came with the mix.

Somewhere along the way, Jaehwan started hating hot chocolate, hating what it meant. But Hongbin needs him here right now, so he sat and smiled and made them each a cup anyway in two of the Pokemon mugs Hakyeon bought Hongbin for his birthday last year. Just so Hongbin will put _something_ in his stomach.

“Do you ever think-” Hongbin cuts himself off, pulling his lower lip into his mouth. Jaehwan sticks a finger in his hot chocolate to see if it’s cool enough to drink yet; it isn’t. He picks it up anyway, rests the porcelain against his jaw, and lets the press burn dimly into his skin.

Hongbin rubs the back of his hand across his mouth several times, but chocolate still stains the corners of his mouth when he lets his hand fall. He’s frowning a little - just slight lines between his eyebrows, indents near his lips.

“Why are we like this?” he says, finally. Something about his voice sounds frustrated, desperate, but Jaehwan doesn’t have an answer for him.

“I don’t know,” he says, and sticks his tongue out into his hot chocolate. He tries not to wince when it burns just like he expected. “Maybe we just love suffering.” Hongbin doesn’t laugh, just cups his hands tighter around his mug like he needs it to stay in one piece. Jaehwan sighs and puts his drink back down on the table, leaning back in his chair. “Bin, what's wrong?”

Lots of things. Everything. More things are wrong than are right, really, but this is something more than usual; Hongbin seems genuinely shaken, pursing his lips, not meeting Jaehwan's eyes.

“I keep - thinking - about -” He stops, inhales deeply through his nose. Fuck, what is it, death or drugs or the way he looks or the- “Numbers, I guess.”

Jaehwan blinks, abruptly lost. “Numbers.” He can feel Hongbin's leg start bouncing as it always does when he slips, barely shaking the smooth tile of the kitchen floor.

Hongbin gestures vaguely with one hand, like the offending digits are floating in the space between them rather than somewhere inside his head. “You know. Statistics. Twenty percent, forty percent.”

It still doesn't mean anything, he can't get his head around why the numbers _matter_ , but he nods dumbly and says, “Okay.”

Hongbin finishes his hot chocolate, head tipping back all the way to expose the pretty line of his neck, and then he's standing up to put the cup in the left half of their double sink. He moves slowly, stiffly, and the hems of his sweatpants almost swallows his feet. Jaehwan waits; Hongbin shuffles back to the table and drops back into the chair across from Jaehwan like his bones can't hold him up anymore.

“Death rate,” he says, after a long pause. “Twenty percent. One in five people with - one in five fucking crazy-” Hongbin presses his lips together and folds his arms in across his chest. “They’ll die of, of it.” _Die of what_ , Jaehwan almost wants to ask, but he knows, and Hongbin knows he knows, so he stays silent.

“Forty percent, two in five, don't - they won't recover, even treated, it's too deep in them, and, so that means that you can extrapolate to say that eight people in every hundred treated won't recover and will die of it and there's so many people treated at our doctors’ it's easily a hundred and neither of us are really-” He's working himself up, speaking faster and faster, gripping his own elbows so tightly the bone pushes white under the skin.

“Hongbin.” Jaehwan doesn't want to be sharp but he ends up almost brusque anyway, and he winces. He just - had to shut him up. Pull him back.

Hongbin’s neck jerks sharply and his eyes are wide as he looks at Jaehwan, like for a moment he’d forgotten Jaehwan was sitting at his kitchen table. It takes him a moment to try to collect himself, to loosen his grip on his arms, and even when his exhales like he's better now Jaehwan doesn't really believe it.

“What do we do, you know?” Hongbin's whispering, the sound soft, fuzzy.

A quip sits heavy on Jaehwan's tongue, but he forces himself to swallow it down. Another time. “Keep going, mostly.”

“I don’t want you to die. I don’t want _me_ to die.”

Jaehwan has to work to keep his face blank, kind, open. “Then you won’t, Hongbin. We’ll be okay, we _will_ , just - maybe we aren’t right now.”

Hongbin doesn’t acknowledge him; he buries his face in his hands and stares at the table through the cracks of his fingers, seeming vaguely horrified, and keeps talking like he doesn’t have control of his mouth. “Everything in me, it, it rejects it, when I eat. And I try to do it anyway, and then I hate myself, and I go to the fucking gym, and I hate myself more for being - for being this _crazy_.” He sounds shaky, that particular tremble of someone trying very hard to keep it together; something in Jaehwan’s stomach curls unpleasant and cold. “For, god, for conflating - I’m - for all _this_.”

This is honest even by their standards. Jaehwan exhales, long and deep, and twists his mug against the table.

“Bean-”

“I’m tired, hyung. I’m so tired.” His voice cracks a little, and he still won’t look at Jaehwan, but at least it seems like his eyes are still dry. That’s something. Small victories.

But Jaehwan doesn’t have anything to say to that; _me too_ feels flat, _I’m sorry_ is both insincere and bland, any joke he could have made flies out through his ears and for once he’s not all that sad to see them go. Hongbin closes his eyes and puts his head down on the table, his arms splayed around the dark halo of his hair; Jaehwan can count the vertebrae on their march from the nape of Hongbin’s neck and under the collar of his too-big T-shirt. He wonders how much weight they thought Hongbin gained. It can’t be much.

“We’ll be okay, Binnie,” he says instead, like that’s any better at all. Hongbin huffs, bitter, into the tabletop.

“Will we,” Hongbin says, rolling his head to the side, his temple still pressing into the wood. It doesn’t really sound like a question, but at least he’s looking at Jaehwan now. Jaehwan counts that as progress; he nods firmly.

Words don’t really feel like enough, not for this. They can’t - it’s - speaking makes it less, somehow, takes it out of what it is, and Jaehwan has never really figured out how to flesh it back out into something more. It’s part of what attracted him to Hongbin in the first place; they were the same, in some odd way, ran on the same wavelength. Close enough to the same to hear each other, at least. Maybe they don’t anymore.

Jaehwan's not _better_ , not by a long shot, but he's better than Hongbin. Hongbin can talk a big game, can bully Jaehwan into buying himself those three hundred calorie mochas he always loved - but he still looks at Jaehwan and sees something he's afraid to be. Even when he knows, knows, knows, that like this, he's running himself into the ground.

It almost, almost - because it can't do it, not really, it can't, he won't let it - but it almost makes Jaehwan feel guilty for trying to get better, in that dim, fucked part of him that still wants to be miserable. Hongbin's reasons for all this are different than Jaehwan's, harder to uproot; it's worth it that he's trying at all, but. But.

Jaehwan figures it’s all a problem for another day - a day when Hongbin eats, doesn’t reek of stale smoke and hot chocolate. (It’s always a problem for another day, really.)

Jaehwan pushes his mug across the table, still full, but drinkable now. It's his ideal temperature, even though probably too cool for Hongbin. Part of him expects Hongbin to push it back to him. Part of him isn't really sure what to do if he doesn't.

Hongbin pulls the mug closer and runs fingertips across the red printed lettering on the sides. It seems to have mesmerized him a little; he pokes a finger into the hot chocolate and leaves it there, watching it ripple every time he breathes, and Jaehwan feels his heartbeat throb tight and heavy in his ears.

There's a high, breathless moment, then, in which Jaehwan can't really move. He’s afraid of bursting whatever safe bubble Hongbin's built up around himself, but isn't sure he can risk stillness either. It's a little thing - a second cup of hot chocolate on an empty stomach, it's _nothing_ , it's ninety empty calories, but, but it's more that Jaehwan thought Hongbin capable of when he sinks in deep like this.

He takes a sip. A small one, barely anything past his lips, but it's something.

“I hate your shirt,” Hongbin says. He still sounds like he's not fully present - like he's looking at Jaehwan but not seeing him. It's an effort, though, a push to get back to where they're comfortable and calm and together and they know how to talk to each other; Jaehwan appreciates that, so he grins, a little lopsided, a little relieved.

“Thanks.” It's some horrible vintage thing he’d gotten for dirt cheap at a thrift store, two sizes too big and complete with deep breast pockets and quarter-sized buttons. It makes him feel delightfully frumpy; Hongbin has said he hates it every time he's seen it on Jaehwan. “I'm going for the design-student-who-wants-to-kill-themselves aesthetic.”

Hongbin snorts. The sound is a loud, blustering thing. “I mean. It suits you.”

Jaehwan presses a hand to his heart, gasping, the very picture of flattered delight. “Oh, _Binnie_ ,” he says, pitching his voice up an octave. He stretches out the long vowel sounds until Hongbin squints at him over the rim of his cup. “Oh, Binnie, I had no _idea_ that you love me so much, oh, if only I'd known sooner, I never would have gone canoodling-”

Hongbin kicks him in the shin from underneath the table, taking another tiny drink of hot chocolate, and Jaehwan laughs.

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: [@taekvoon](http://www.twitter.com/taekvoon)


End file.
